by Marty Forbes
September 17, 2024
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Over the next few weeks I am going to post some ‘from behind the walls at 630 CHED’ memories before the station flips to 880 on the dial. Bob Layton will be joining in with contributions from his two books on the station!
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Klondike Days ran for many years in Edmonton. In 1960 the Association started the annual Sourdough Raft Race.
It was a riot with tons of local businesses building bizarre (not so water worthy) craft to float down the North Saskatchewan river a few hours before the Sunday promenade downtown.
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One year 630 CHED decided to do ‘cut ins’ from a vehicle called an Amphicar which was half car/half boat.
The announcer chosen to do the reports was Larry Thieson, nicknamed Happy Larry. He had the voice of god.
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Now back then equipment certainly wasn’t as technically savy as it is today so he used a ‘line of site’ Walkie talkie type unit.
As long as that unit could connect directly to a tall building downtown the audio would make it to air.
Remember…there was no such thing as a cell phone back then.
The race was loud…and wet…so the Amphicar tried to stay out of the way of the participants especially with the station electronics on board.
Now here’s where it goes off rail.
The car stalled. Conked out.
And it began floating down the river past the rafts, past other boats, past the bridges, and the line of site was now gone…so…Larry was stranded.
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By this point yelling and waving at any other boats was useless…all appeared to look normal down river.
A good while passes and the car ends up on a sandbar well down the North Saskatchewan river. Passersby get called over…and the Amphicar finally gets towed back to the dealer several hours later.
Now I’m not sure what happened after that but Larry left the station not long thereafter. He was steamed…frustrated and with the sun beating down on him throughout this escapade dead tired.
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In a touch of irony, when I started at CHNL in 1970, my first program director was…you got it…the not so happy Larry….who later shortened his name to Hap.
*The Amphicar is an amphibious automobile which was launched at the 1961 New York Auto Show. It was made in West Germany and marketed from 1961 to 1968, with production ceasing in 1965.
